Hoffman International is a 90-year-old small New Jersey dealer/distributor that specializes in supplying cranes and other heavy-duty construction equipment to customers in Europe and other parts of the world.
In 2009, Hoffman had 87 employees. Today we only have 65, and are struggling mightily through this Great Recession.
Traditionally, export activities and revenues helped us to weather domestic downturns. When the domestic market was down the international market was up, and vice versa. But the European economic crisis has doubled our troubles. With the continued lack of credit and ongoing turmoil in Europe, we are running the risk of having to lay off additional employees in early 2012.
Over the past 39 years of global activity, Hoffman has delivered products and services to some of the world’s most difficult and challenging areas, including Russia, Egypt and Colombia.
Hoffman’s major revenues come from Italy — our Milan office has been in operation since 1978.
Our long-time customers in Greece just shut down their operation because they couldn’t pay their bills. And now we see the same thing happening in Italy. That is in addition to an already poor domestic demand for equipment and services and an inability to secure working capital/credit from U.S. lending institutions.
After the economic downturn in the U.S., American big banks didn’t want to work with small businesses. So we turned to international banks with offices in the United States to provide us with the funds to be able to secure the purchase of equipment from U.S. manufacturers and provide services for our overseas customers.
Now banks in Europe are very cautious. The uncertainty has caused us to put a few deals on hold. The problem, though, is that by the time this is resolved the prices of the raw materials could rise and the equipment could become so expensive that the customers won’t want it anymore.
For now, we are looking around for customers in other parts of the world. And we are watching and waiting — and hoping.
We are hoping the European crisis will be contained and we are hoping we will be able to continue exporting to Europe, which has been good to us.
Musya Tumanyan is senior vice president of Hoffman International in Piscataway, NJ.
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